V
VOL. LXVI
INDIANAPOUS, OCT. 14, 1011.
NO. 41
DEATH LURKS IN THE COUNTRY.
IT CAN BE CONQUERED AND PERFECT HEAI/TH SECURED.
Irrigate the Fields and Garden Through
Septic  Tanks,   Bringing   Health
and Prosperity.
By H. B. Mem.
It has long been said that the country is more healthful than the city and
I think it is true. But men have begun to bank on that statement and all
too many are checking too heavily on
the account. The city man realizes
that he must guard against disease and
as a result many city homes are much
to be preferred to corresponding country homes as being conducive to good
health. Country districts are woefully
lax in taking precautions against intestinal diseases, such as cholera infantum, cholera morbus, diarrhoea, dysentery, and typhoid fever. The germs
causing these diseases are cast from the
body in the fecal matter and urine and must gain entrance to
the digestive system of a well person
taefore that person can get the disease.
TYip prevalence of these diseases shows
that this thing happens.       How?
What Dr. Hurty Says.
Dr. J. N. Hurty, Secretary of the
State Board of Health, has made the
statement that "we get sick because
we persist in eating our own excreta."
Pretty strong statement, isn't it? Sounds
bad, doesn't it? Inclined to disbelieve
it, aren't you? Yes, but just think a
minute. Somewhere near almost
every country home is a shack called
a privy. Sometimes this is set over a
Pit, sometimes not. Here the human
excreta from the family accumulate
from one year's end to the other. The
liquids, contaminated with bacteria
and organic matter, soak into the soil
and reach the well. The solid or semi-
•olid portions breed millions and millions of flies. Other millions of flies
visit the filthy place. They crawl over
the apple which mother is peeling for
Jane, the six year old. They feast on
the bread and butter which are on the
lable at dinner. They fall into the
Mil of milk which father ls preparing
to run through the separator. They
"wim in the gravy dish. In short, they
*alk over all the food which the family
f»U and spread the nasty filth from
their feet wherever they go; and to
°ap it all, every member of the family
"Inks the clear, cool, sparkling water
*hich is reeking with disease and
death. What wonder is It that the
^"V gets cholera infantum, that Jane
*«s diarrhoea, that father nearly dies
M cholera morbus, and that all are
I *ickly most of the time? The wonder
rather, that so many do escape these
diseases.
The Remedy Ls Clear.
Quit eating human  excreta.      How?
ere are three points to this answer.
■    Abandon the dug well, and have
driven  well.     A dug  well  is  always
' ""serous, for it is subject to surface
„   utton, even If danger of privy pollu-
Uoi> be absent.
•    Make a crusade, a  real crusade,
-a'nst the fly.     Give him no place to
Allow no manure piles.    They
the  manure,   anyway.      Do   not
allow him entrance to your water closet
or bath room. Screen such places.
Do not allow him in your house. Screen
your slop buckets. Catch him and kill
him in every way you can, and above
all keep him oft the food.
3. Do away with the ordinary privy
and adopt some sanitary method f
disposing of the family's excreta. A
dry earth closet can be installed at little expense and taken care of with little bother. Make the privy fly-tight,
and don't set it over a pit. Under the
seat put a water tight receptacle—
bucket of some kind or tight box, and
arrange  so  that  it  can  readily  be  re-
pucity of at least 300 cubic feet. It is
important that the sewage be quiet.
Where an irrigation line is to be used,
the tank should be divided into at least
three compartments. The sewage ln
the first compartment is kept more or
less stirred up by that coming in. In
the second compartment, it is perfectly
quiet and the decomposition of the organic materials takes place. The third
compartment is a storage tank made to
hold enough water to fill the irrigating
tile full. It fills gradually and when
full is emptied into the tile all at once
hy means of a siphon. This method
of emptying allows all portions of the
Farm Home of H. D. Maples, Shelby County.
moved. Be sure that it is all fly tight.
Have a supply handy of dry soil or a
mixture of dry soil and ashes. Whenever any one uses the stool, let him
cover the excreta with a shovelful of
dry earth. When the receptacle is full,
empty it and spade it into the garden
or anywhere else that you like. It is
inoffensive, perfectly harmless, and acts
as a  fertilizer.
Septic Tanks a Brtter Way.
A still better, in many ways less bothersome, and certainly more satisfactory
way of disposing of the excrete is by
means of a septic tank. A septic tank
is a large, water tight tank set below
the freezing point in the ground and
connecting with a bathroom in the
house. All the sewage from the house
may be sent to it, the more water the
better. In the qu'-t of the septic tank
all the organic matter decays, even
light tissue paper is destroyed, disease
germs die, and the water which issues
from the exit ia pure and clear. This
water may be discharged with safety
• nto a hollow or creek, for it is harmless, or it may be led into shallow laid
tile—say 18 inches deep—and used for
sub-irrigation. In such case a deeper
system of drain tile should be laid between the lines of irrigating tile to prevent the soil from getting water-clogged. If you should irrigate your garden
in this way, no drouth would ever affect
its yield, the vegetables would always
be perfectly harmless, large and well
formed, and the yields would be very
great. This cesspool or septic tank
should be closed to air and light. Note
that this would keep out all flies. For
a family of six, it had best have a ca-
irrigated area to receive a like amount
of water. A septic tank needs cleaning out once in two or three years. Beyond that no attention is necessary. It
is certainly the most nearly ideal way
to  dispose  of  sewage.
What This Costs.
But how about the cost, do you ask?
Is it not too great? No, a thousand
times, no. A septic tank may be out
of the reach of many: but a clean, sanitary dry earth closet is out of the reach
of none. And if the cost were high, I
would not care to answer that question.
I should want to put one in return.
Would the bereaved count any cost,
however great, too much to pay for the
lives which departed? Laet us not weigh
money cost against human health, human happiness, human life.
NATIONAL     CONSERVATION     CONGRESS REPORT.
The convention of the National Conservation Congress which was recently
held at Kansas City was a most successful and educational gathering.
President Taft in an address showed
how vitally important the question of
conservation was in this country. By
statistics he showed that practically all
productive land was now taken up and
that it v/as doubtful how much unproductive land could be reclaimed by irrigation. At the present rate of increase in population within fifty years
the number of people will  be doubled.
"It is necessary then," the President
said, "that not only our acreage but
our product per acre must increase
proportionately so that our people may
be fed. We must realize that the best
land and easiest land to cultivate has
been taken up and cultivated and that
the additions to improved lands and to
total acreage in the future must be of
land much more expensive to prepare
for tillage. The increase per acre of
the product, too, must lie steady each
year, and each year an increase is niore
difficult. Still even in the face of these
facts there is no occasion for discouragement.
"We are going to remain as a self-
supporting country and raise food
enough within our borders to feed our
people."
He then showed what and how European countries are doing along these
lines, and in closing said:
"There is nothing peculiar about soils
in Europe that give the great yield
per acre there and prevent its possibility in the United States. On the
contrary, there is every reason to believe that the application of the same
methods would produce just as large
crops here as abroad."
Dr. Wiley, U. S. Chemist, was a
prominent speaker at the convention.
In speaking especially to the yourtg
people he said:
"I am young myself, and I haven't
grown a day older in the last fifty
years. I will have you know, also,
that I am a conservationist; I believe
that I made the first public speech on
conservation that ever was made; that
was in 1894 before tbe American Chemical Association. Now, the greatest
conservation is that of youth and one
of the most important factors In preserving youth is play. Play as much as
you can. Your teachers don't give
you time enough for that."
"You young people are forced to devote a large part of your time to studying such-valuable bits of knowledge as
the names of the various rivers that
empty into the North Sea, or the name
of the highest mountain in Thibet. And
there is hardly a one of you who knows
what bread is made of, or one of you
girls who know how to darn a sock.
And then there's our system of weights
and measures. You have to spend two
years learning all of them that can be
crowded into your brain, when the
splendid metric system might be mastered in ten minutes and the rest of
that two years spent In acquiring some
real knowledge.
'To stay young don't eat painted
candy. Most artificially colored candy
Is coated with a coal tar dye, and this
usually contains arsenic. Arsenic poisoning has the same symptoms as infantile   paralysis.
"Most of the soft drinks you buy are
artificially colored or flavored. I approve of soda water, but it must be of
the right kind and the right kind is
not always to be found. And a great
many of the soft drinks contain caffeine. Those particularly should be
avoided, for youth is destroyed when
the nerves go and caffeine is the destroyer of nerves. Coffee and tea ought
to be avoided, too. The state cannot
be too carefully safeguarded in the
character and kind of food products
offered for sale. The aggregation of
population in great centers increases
the difficulty of feeding the people but
does not Justify the production of unwholesome and improper food.
In speaking of heath on the farm he
said:
"People can be healthier in the country but they can have more fun in the